hot, sweaty rant

Among my least favorite of English words: insurance.

Not just because it’s incredibly expensive and, in the case of automobiles, forced onto me, but because it is also worthless.

I have had two or three jobs which afforded me health insurance in my life, and the first time I went to take advantage of it (when my shoulder continuously bled for three weeks), I asked my friend to drive me to the ER. The ER couldn’t help me, so they sent me to a dermatologist. When I went to file my claim with the insurance company, they said too much time had passed between the incident and my filing.

Apparently, you have to warn them in advance if you’re going to start bleeding to death.

So, I paid the hospital bill, and the dermatologist bill, and ate Ramen noodles for about a month. And missed a few utility payments.

I’m older and (God I like to think) wiser, now. I’m not taking any chances with these stupid insurance companies. So when I go to have a five-week-old persistent cough looked at by a doctor recommended by almost all of my friends, it’s about a month after my new insurance became active.

I waited, see, because I figure they need about a month to get their mountains of paperwork into nice, straight stacks.

So, I have my magic card with 300 identification numbers on it (that’s 300 groups of numbers, not 300 digits), and I go see the doctor and she’s supercool, just like everyone said. She gives me some magic nasal spray as a free sample, which miraculously cures me in a matter of days. I pay her office $20 and go on my way.

Many weeks go by. I get a call from the doctor’s office saying that they got a call from the insurance company, and the insurance company wasn’t able to pay my claim because gobbledy gooble nonsense. It’s now somehow my problem to call the insurance company and sort this out.

Fine. At least I’m being given a chance to sort it out, and not just being sent a surprise bill from the doctor’s office.

So I call the insurance company, and the lady’s really nice, and she explains that they halted payment on my claim (why do they make a doctor visit sound like an auto accident in which I was at fault?) because they didn’t have knowledge of previous coverage for me.

So?

So, what?

I don’t care.

Did it occur to you morons that people don’t have insurance from birth? Sometimes it takes a while? Sometimes it goes away for a while? Sometimes we don’t start our professional careers by being given an internship at a newspaper that my boyfriend’s father’s company just bought, and then glide through life without ever having to worry about how to pay the damned rent? Grow up, people. Life is nothing like anything you ever see on the WB.

So, anyway. I don’t say that to the nice lady on the phone. I have done my time as a CSR, and I know how refreshing it is for them to be treated with respect. I simply ask her what I should do, since, you know, there’s not going to be any evidence of previous insurance, and she tells me I just need to fax over a statement to that effect, including my 300 identification number groups and my signature.

Within seven minutes, that’s done.

…

Guess who I just got an invoice from? The doctor’s office. I didn’t even need to open the envelope — in fact, I haven’t yet — because they were kind enough to stamp THIS IS AN INVOICE across 45% of the front of the envelope.

I seriously do not know why I bother trying to live in this country.

Nothing.

Ever.

Works.

28 April 2005, 23:10